Gundam Build Fighters

By Andrew Osmond.

Gundam Build Fighters is about a hyper-enthused little boy, so it makes sense it was directed by Kenji Nagasaki, who’d go on to direct a little series called My Hero Academia. It’s also the first Gundam to acknowledge that the franchise isn’t just about warfare, and catastrophe, and tragic rivalries. No, Gundam is also about… playing with toys.

The series is set somewhere where no Gundam had ever taken place before – in the present day (more or less) and in the “real” world. Except that’s not quite right. Gundam Build Fighters began in 2013, but it had had a prototype in 2010; a video miniseries of three short episodes, called Mobile Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G. In that video, the hero’s a fan of Gundam plastic model kits, which are abbreviated Japanese style to “Gunpla.” Gunpla fans compete in Virtual Reality tournaments, where they can “pilot” the kits they’ve painstakingly built… and that’s the starting point of Gundam Build Fighters.

As you can imagine, this makes for a very different kind of Gundam than those that had come before. Even the sillier Gundams usually involved the fates of millions and characters wracked by tragedy. Gundam Build Fighters is a series where the characters aren’t haunted by their destroyed families, or by wondering if someone will drop a space colony on their heads. It’s about kids who love making mecha and challenging each other to see whose Gundam is best.

The main character is 13 year-old Sei, whose family runs a Gunpla kit hobby shop. Gunpla can be based directly on particular mecha from the umpteen Gundam anime; they can also be variants you assemble yourself. Then they can be entered into Virtual Reality contests… or so Build Fighters claims, as it goes into its own fantasy. We’re told that ten years before Build began, a new particle was discovered called the Plavsky particle. This is a jokey reference to the Minovsky particles in the original Gundam series.

Somehow the Plavsky particles react with the plastic of Gunpla models, allowing for the creation of VR contest spaces where the Gunpla come to full-sized “life.” The particles also allow for the creation of any number of VR backdrops  – cities, deserts, outer space. These spectacular contests, where you can pilot a Gundam for “real,” are the basis for a world tournament, which young Sei dreams of entering. After all, his dad (absent at present) came second in a previous world tournament…

Sei’s story really starts when he meets an aggravating, unworldly red-haired boy called Leiji, who the evidence soon suggests might be an alien. After Sei helps him out, Leiji starts teaming with him in local Gunpla conflicts, and Sei realises he might have an ally to take him all to the world stage. But where is Leiji really from, and what’s the secret of the Plavsky particles?

Gundam Build Fighters was broadcast in Japan from 2013. If you’re plotting its place in the franchise, it came after Gundam 00 and Gundam AGE, and before Gundam Reconguista in G and Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans. As it happens, Gundam Build Fighters started only months after the end of the anime version of Robotics;Notes by Production I.G. Based on a Visual Novel game, that was also about mecha fans and the robots they build, though it skews very differently from Gundam Build Fighters.

That is, as you’ll have gathered by now, a far lighter-hearted show than other Gundams . Moving from them to Build Fighters is like going from Sword Art Online, with its life-or-death conflicts, to the fun of the spinoff Gun Gale Online. Naturally, though, the series offers endless Easter Eggs for Gundam fans. For instance, Sei’s journey is overseen by an impressively-moustached gentleman, known to everyone as “Mr. Ral.” Not only is he the spitting image of the Rumba Ral, who was a memorable adversary in the original Gundam series, he’s even voiced by the same Japanese actor…

Andrew Osmond is the author of 100 Animated Feature Films. Gundam Build Fighters is released in the UK by Anime Limited.